The ikhras awards committee is pleased to announce the Muntadhar Zaidi Ikhras Shoe-Of-The-Month Award for November, 2015 goes to Pope Tawadros II. Pope Tawadros earned this honor after embarking upon a normalizing visit to Jerusalem. The visit to the occupied Palestinian capital marks the first time the head of the Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Church has visited the city since it fell under Israeli occupation in 1967.
After the signing of the Camp David “peace accords” between” the Anwar Sadat regime and the usurping Zionist entity in 1978, the late Egyptian Pope Shenouda III issued a papal ban preventing members of the Egyptian Coptic Church from visiting the Arab city while under Israeli occupation. Israeli tourism to Egypt had boomed following the treaty, but it had little to no reciprocal effect on the part of Egyptians. The treaty, from the outset, as it remains today, was highly unpopular among all Egyptians making it unlikely that any significant number of Egyptians would visit occupied Palestine. Nevertheless, Pope Shenouda was a highly principled and politically astute leader and understood that any visits, even by a handful of Egyptians, including any Egyptian Coptic Christians, would be a propaganda victory for Israeli hasbarists. Pope Shenouda was the head of the church for over 40 years and remained opposed to any normalization with Israel until he died.